I love the way the discussion about Eden with Jacques at the beginning of the story parallels so beautifully with the ending:

“Perhaps everybody has a garden of Eden, I don’t know; but they have scarcely seen their garden before they see the flaming sword. Then, perhaps, life only offers the choice of remembering the garden or forgetting it. Either, or: it takes strength to remember, it takes another kind of strength to forget. It takes a hero to do both. The world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget.”

“The morning weighs on my shoulders with the dreadful weight of hope and I take the blue envelope which Jacques has sent me and tear it slowly into many pieces, watching them dance in the wind, watching the wind carry them away. Yet, as I turn and begin walking towards the waiting people, the wind blows some of them back on me”

Throughout the whole book, David tries desperately to forget his Eden with Giovanni, but he will always be forced to remember. Such an interesting question is presented on who is the madman and who is the hero in the story.